Patients are facing wait times of up to four weeks for routine GP appointments as practices struggle with an “unprecedented demand” for services.

The Irish Independent contacted more than 100 doctors surgeries and found many with long waits for appointments.

Waiting times for blood tests are still between three and five weeks due to the backlog caused by the HSE cyber attack earlier this year. While dozens of practices had next-day availability for standard appointments, others have wait times of between two and four weeks.

Dr Diarmuid Quinlan, medical director of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), warned the situation may get worse.

“Waiting times for GPs are getting longer due to unprecedented demand for their services and workload combined with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and shortages of GPs and GP nurses,” he told the Irish Independent.

“Both adults and children are experiencing higher levels of non-Covid respiratory illnesses compared to last year and there is a backlog of patients who delayed seeing their GP during the pandemic about possible illnesses, who are now coming forward.”

Soaring Covid cases have also forced some GP practices to revert to phone consultations only.

In Co Carlow, two medical centres said the next available appointments would be in two to three weeks’ time, while another practice said they are no longer offering face-to-face consultations due to the “high level of Covid in the community”.

Doctors said they are being “inundated” with calls concerning head colds and coughs in children, and are urging parents to “be patient”.

Swiftbrook Medical Centre in Citywest, Dublin, said it is experiencing a “high volume of calls for children with head colds, mild fevers, coughs or sore throats who are well”.

“Parents should self-refer via the HSE website and only request a GP call back if children are sick,” a message on their phone service states.

The majority of practices are asking children with symptoms similar to Covid to get a PCR test before seeing a GP, which has led to increased numbers attending hospitals instead.

Practices in Dublin city centre, Wexford, Kildare and Monaghan had wait times of between two and four weeks. Some are now asking patients to pay up front when making appointments due to no-shows. Winter flu and booster vaccination clinics, combined with rising Covid-19 queries, are also increasing pressure.

Dr Denis McCauley, chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation GP committee, said clearer messaging needs to be provided by the HSE to parents.

“If you have a child with a temperature and they’re not too sick, they should get a Covid test. If it’s negative, it’s likely just a regular cold and there shouldn’t be a need to interact with the GP if they are otherwise well and feeding normally,” he said.

Dr McCauley said doctors are “having to put out fires left, right and centre explaining to people why there is a delay in getting appointments”.

“At the present minute, there is more demand than there is capacity in general practice to service that demand. Before Covid, mainly because cuts were made to general practice, there were significant manpower issues.

“Now there is an increased workload because of Covid, patient behaviour has changed as we’ve medicalised living and there’s a lot more contact being made with GPs.

“There may be some spillover from the UK, where there is this perception that doctors aren’t seeing patients. That’s not the case here. We also find if a patient has particular confidence in one doctor, they might wait three weeks to see that person rather than see someone else straight away.”

Some parents who contacted the Irish Independent said they brought their children to A&E as they could not wait 24 hours for a Covid result.

First-time mother Vick Lyons-White, from Dundalk, Co Louth, became concerned when her 22-month-old daughter broke out in blisters on her mouth, throat, hands and feet. She phoned her GP but could only get a phone appointment for two days later. Her daughter had a temperature of 39.7 degrees. She was told she would need a negative Covid test before attending the surgery.

“She wasn’t eating, drinking or producing dirty or wet nappies, so I was really worried and decided to bring her to the hospital,” Ms Lyons-White said. “You can’t see the blisters over the phone. It turned out she had hand, foot and mouth disease. I was really panicking and it was frustrating not being able to get to see a GP.”